If you’re considering whether or not to become a mystery shopper, it’s worth reviewing whether or not you need any formal qualifications to do so. As a mystery shopper, you’ll visit stores and businesses to produce reports on their levels of customer service; fields can cover everything from high street shops to restaurants, hotels, and many other areas. With mystery shopping assignments available through reputable agencies such as Tern, what should you be focusing on in terms of your qualifications for a role?
Primarily, there are no formal training requirements or qualifications needed to be a mystery shopper. To make yourself stand out, though, it is important to be able to produce high-quality reports; this means that you’ll have to be able to pay attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar, while also being able to understand what a brief for a mystery shopping assignment is asking of you, and how you can make the most of the resources provided to you by an agency.
Any past experience in a particular field might also be helpful if you want to improve your chances of getting regular work as a mystery shopper. For example, if you’ve worked in a specialist industry, you might be in a better position to mystery shop a business in this area than other mystery shoppers. Your expertise in areas such as customer service, or your ability to be able to work with detailed briefs and projects, might also give you an advantage in terms of finding mystery shopping work.
When looking for mystery shopper assignments, remember that no agency should ask you to provide examples of your qualifications, or any payment to work for them. Reputable agencies will add you to their database if you meet their basic criteria, which might include being able to work within a particular area. The more information that you can provide in an application, the higher your chance of finding work that’s suited to your experience.
You should also be able to view mystery shopping as a part-time opportunity that can push you towards gaining on-the-job experience that can be translated into further mystery shopping assignments. If you can prove that you can complete reports on time, and for a range of different assignments, you’ll be able to make yourself more attractive for different agencies that need workers.
While mystery shopping isn’t for everyone – you have to work long hours, and don’t have any guarantees of regular work – it can provide excellent experiences and insights into how different businesses are run. You can also receive payments and redemptions for assignments. Make sure, then, that you can apply for mystery shopper jobs safe in the knowledge that while you don’t need formal qualifications, you can find ways to enhance your chances of finding the right assignments for your talents.
